... "National City chairman and CEO David A. Daberko said an increasingly difficult economic climate for consumers meant more overdraft fees for the bank" ...

Doesn't it seem sad when the CEO blatantly points out economic distress as one cause for increased profits? Where’s Robin Hood when you really need him.

When we signed the purchase agreement for our 1922 Colonial, we were a starry-eyed couple – ready to move in and begin our married life together. Five minutes after taking possession, we hated every square foot of the house. After the initial shock of buyers remorse set in, we decided to get a home improvement loan and renovate the outdated kitchen and bathroom. We knew the home had solid bones and great character, but now it was up to us to bring out its full potential. We had three months before the lease on our apartment ran out so that was our timeframe for completing both projects.

The best way to describe our old kitchen is dark, outdated and poorly designed – a great combination. The cabinets were old, dark and too intrusive within the space. Layers of plywood and linoleum were covering the natural white oak hardwood. Even though neither of us are students of kitchen design, it was obvious the kitchen would need a face-lift. Ideally, we would have spent a fair amount of time researching the project before jumping in. In reality, we jumped in as soon as I brought my toolbox over. I can remember pulling that first piece of cove base up like it was yesterday. It was not long before we completely gutted the kitchen. Would this blank canvas become our dream kitchen, or our worst nightmare?

We spent some time browsing kitchen design books and Web sites like This Old House Online to build our kitchen. Our design would include maple cabinetry, laminate counter tops, a ceramic tile back splash and refinished hardwood floors with a natural finish. Gutting the kitchen uncovered some unforeseen problems that we would have to correct along side the new work. We discovered part of the cold water supply line was galvanized and corroding, and part of the floor was water damaged.

Given our timeframe and the amount of work that had now mounted up, we decided we would need to hire a contractor to help with some of the work. This would allow us to focus on what made the most sense to do ourselves and actually have a functioning kitchen ready when we moved in. We would have a contractor update the plumbing and refinish the floors, and we would install the cabinets, fixtures, backsplash, trim and apply a fresh coat of paint.

Now I realize most people focus on one room at a time while completing a total renovation. However, given our situation we needed to perform the bathroom remodel in parallel to the kitchen. The bathroom was not much different from our kitchen in that it lacked anything we wanted in a bathroom. Like the kitchen, we would take the bathroom down to the studs and start from scratch. The same cold supply problem revealed itself in the bathroom and some outdated wiring surfaced. Since we already found a contractor to help with the kitchen, we would let him take care of the plumbing and electrical issues in the bathroom prior to getting started.

An article in the Home Depot magazine inspired the design for out bathroom. We could not follow it exactly though, as our budget would not allow for Travertine flooring and a glass shower door. With a few exceptions and numerous trips to Home Depot, we managed to get the right design. The result is a calming bathroom with plenty of ceramic tiling, a neutral color palate and Jacuzzi tub.

This process was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. However, my wife and I grew individually and together. We learned when it does and does not make sense to do it yourself. We learned how to install cabinets, countertops, sinks, toilets, and just about anything else that makes up a kitchen or bathroom. Most importantly, though we learned that we could accomplish a seemingly impossible task with some good old sweat, laughter and tears.

My prediction is that Google’s marketing model will fail. Actually, I do not even understand how they make any money at all. I know I have never clicked on a “Sponsored Link”. I would like to think that as we become smarter consumers, the idea of being drawn to a company via advertising will decline. However, I have also never purchased anything from an Infomercial (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I guess my point is that although I would like to see the online media world void of advertising that is the reason why so much of it is free. So who is paying for all of this great content if we are that much smarter as consumers? I suppose it is the same people buying items from Infomercials, flyers, cold-calls, etc. Perhaps the online population is actually getting less intelligent as consumers as more of us join in. If nothing else, the changing face of marketing should prove interesting over time.

This morning I decided to try to find the video using Google's video search feature. Although I could not find any video, I was able to find some still images from the segment.

Hopefully one day, I will be able to find the full segment.

**UPDATE - People have finally found the video**
http://dada.castpost.com/130104.html

I am new to developing Web services, but I must say the .NET Framework makes developing one almost trivial. I imagine JAVA does as well. That is of course, if you are alright running them via SOAP.

It is obvious, at least to me, that the Open Source software debate ultimately has nothing to do with technology. After all, people create and consume software. I cannot imagine that code that is Microsoft Windows XP will loose any sleep if someone chooses Linux to manage his or her PC. However, I am willing to bet that Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds would. Like each of us, arguably each of these individuals has goals and beliefs that are common as well as those that are different. Yet the fruits of their labor have both led to the production of software with the same goal in mind – to add value to a computer. Asking if one adds more value than the other is a loaded question, and is not even the right questions to ask. Asking if one aligns with you beliefs, however, is perhaps the more appropriate question.

So what would our digital world look like if all source was open? Would we lead more enriching lives? Would it be easier to translate our ideas into ones and zeros? Chances are you or I will never live to find out. Chances are, even our great grand children never will as well. As long as we still need to create software, the human psyche will not allow us to answer these questions. Can you image a United States of America entirely composed of Democrats? Republicans? Realizing that this debate is a natural extension of human nature will allow us to appreciate it for more than a technological choice.

Instructions:
We can break down the steps for installing an assembly into the GAC to:
  1. Creating a key pair
  2. Creating a strong named assembly
  3. Installing the assembly into the GAC
  4. Configuring Visual Studio .NET (optional)

1. Creating a key pair
Using the Strong Name tool (sn.exe) provided with the Visual Studio .NET SDK, we can create a public/private key pair that we will use to sign our assembly. The image below shows you how to create a key pair. Pay attention to the path, as the Strong Name toll will be located where you installed Visual Studio .NET.

Note: If other users need access to these shared assemblies, you need to verify that the key pairs you create are accessible at the machine level and not the user level. You can test this with "sn -m", and if you server is not already configured appropriately, an "sn -m -y" will enable your key pairs to be machine specific. You may also need to modify NTFS permissions or Local Security Policies for you developers so that they can access these shared assemblies.

2. Creating a strong named assembly
Now that you have create the key pair, the next step is to give you assebly a strong name. The simplest way is to modify the AssemblyInfo.vb or AssemblyInfo.cs file by providing some additional parameters, and then compile the project. The image below shows you what parameters to add (AssemblyKeyFile & AssemblyKeyName) and the values they need for our example. Once you compile, you have now created a strong name for this assembly.

3. Installing the assembly into the GAC
Now that your assembly has a strong name, you can install it into the GAC. The .NET Framework will not permit you to install an assembly without a strong name into the GAC. Once you build your assembly (StrongName.dll) in this example, you will need to create a location on the server to keep it. One approach is to create a folder under C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework and place the DLL there. Once you have place the DLL there, using Windows Explorer, you can drag it to the C:\WINDOWS\assembly folder. The assembly folder is a special folder where the .NET Framework stores assemblies for the GAC. The images below shows you what the assembly folder looks like after dragging our assembly there.

4. Configuring Visual Studio .NET (optional)
As an optional step, you may configure your development server so that the assemblies you add to the GAC will automatically show up when you need to add a referenc to them via Visual Studio .NET. To accomplish this, you will need to modify the registry on you development server. The image below shows you the location and value for the new key we created for this example.

Now, when you open Visual Studio .NET (close & reopen if you already have an instance running), and go to add a reference to a project you will see that the assembly you added to the GAC shows up (just like the DLL included in the .NET Framework) without the need to browse for it. The image below illustrates this for our example.

Description of Symptom:
Over time, upon requesting files (i.e. aspx, html, etc. - any you are processing with the .NET Framework), you receive the following message:
  Failed to start monitoring directory changes.
This message appears to occur randomly.

Description of Problem:
The problem actually has to do with the number of simultaneous Server Message Block (SMB) connections that are allowed between the client (the Web server) and the server (NAS device). This parameter is controlled from the client via the following registry key
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\parameters\MaxCmds
and from the server via the following registry key (assuming this is a Windows Server)
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\parameters\MaxMpxCt

When establishing an SMB connection the lower of these two values is used to determine the maximumn number of simultaneous connections. The default value for the client (MaxCmds) is 50, so without manually adding this registry key, your Windows server (and thus your ASP .NET application) will be limited to 50 simultaneous connections to the NAS device. In practice, a one-to-one relationship exists between the number of folders beginning from the root of your application to the number of SMB connections. So if your application does not have more than 50 folders, you will never experience this problem. However, if you do have more than 50 folders in your ASP .NET application, you will receive the message noted in the symptom upon requesting the 51st folder. You can always monoitor the number of SMB connections opened from your Windows server via perfmon by the Redirector\Current Commands performance counter. Furthermore, you can always identify the maximum number of simultaneous SMB connections allowed between your server and the NAS device by examiming the network traffic from your server. If you run network monitoring software for some amount of time, you will then be able to find the exact value being used. The image below shows that during the session setup (SMB session between your server and the NAS device) the "Max MPX Requests" block will show you at the network level how many connections you will be able to utilize concurrently. It took some effort for us to get to 2048 (128 was "hard-coded" in the EMC NAS appliance we are connecting to), but this effort was worth it just for the knowledge I acquired.

Let us examine, a bit more in detail, the similarities between constructing physical structures and information systems. Usually a structure consists of a location, foundation, frame, windows, plumbing, electrical, etc. Similarly, information systems typically contain a database, application server, networking, etc. When construction companies build houses, they always build them in the same order. First, they acquire a location. Then they lay the foundation, construct the frame, install the plumbing and electrical, and finally perform any finish work. When IT professionals build information systems, they do not always build them in the same order. Industry best practices typically dictate that we build information systems in some order, but that is not to say companies do not vary in how they build them. Why are there differences? Mostly, laws or building codes exist dictating the exact standards construction companies must follow while building a physical structure. However, in the digital world, no such building codes exist dictating how we are to build information systems. Some IT companies build the networking components first, then the database, followed by the application. Others may build all of these different components in parallel and assemble them near the end. The main point is that there is not one way that everyone does it.

So where does all of this leave us? I plan to discuss this issue more in the future because I think there is value following this path. I hope that as we move forward with this dialogue you will begin to see that it is inevitable that building information systems will follow the model by which we build physical structure.